How well I remember the February fish which my faithful attendant declared (wrongly) was a kelt, and the other one, really a kelt, which I landed above the Middle Narrow, marked and returned to the water, and caught again two days later in the Old Cruive, when he received quite a cordial greeting and a second benediction to help him further on his way down to the sea!
It was in the spring of 1883 that, fishing the Lower Narrow one afternoon, two fish, almost elbowing each other, came at my fly at the same moment, an incident that had never occurred to me before. I hooked one of them, but it proved to be a kelt; these kelts are greedy beasts.
A friend with me one day hooked a big fish in the New Cruive Pool; the fish ran and leaped for some minutes, and then went down. We alternately held on from eleven a.m. till five p.m., when a growing suspicion proved true that the fish had got the line fast under a stone, and had escaped.
I shall never forget the Rev. Gordon Calthorp, minutely cross-examining me at a lunch one day on the subject of salmon fishing, and, a day or two afterwards, during a church mission, using the information he had thus acquired to illustrate, in his telling way, the wiles of Satan. Of course, the successful angler represented the Evil One! I was meekly sitting near.
The present water-bailiff of the Ewe is John Mackenzie (Iain or John Glas), of Moss Bank, Poolewe. He is a silent man, but knows the river thoroughly. His predecessor was Sandy Urquhart, well remembered for his stupendous loquacity. He had many good stories,—one, of the "fine gentleman" who had a day on the Ewe, killed a salmon, and gave Sandy a five pound note (!); another, of a well-known Ewe angler, who, Sandy said, being annoyed by the long sulking of a fish, stripped and dived down to the hole where the salmon lay. He succeeded in pulling the fish from his lair, but also pulled the hook from the fish's mouth.
The Ewe is easy to fish. There are few trees or banks, and all the casts are accessible. Waders are not necessary, and a long cast is seldom required. There are convenient "toes" for many of the casts, though not always quite in the right places. A north-west or north wind is the best for the Narrows, as it rouses a useful ripple against the scarcely apparent stream. I have said nothing about rod and line; they should be light. It is no use the angler wearying himself with a heavy nineteen or twenty foot rod. A sixteen or seventeen foot rod is quite enough, remembering the elementary principle that the shortest line which will cover the water is the best. I never now use a gaff on the Ewe. It is quite unnecessary, as there are no steep banks. I never lost a fish for want of a gaff, but many I have hooked have got off during vain attempts to gaff them, even when the gaff has been wielded by an experienced hand. To gaff a kelt involves an almost certain breach of the law, for the kelt is nearly sure to die. To gaff a clean fish is to mar one of the most beautiful objects of sport. My plan is to draw the nose of the fish to the edge of the water, then lay down the rod, and instantaneously grasp the root of the tail firmly with one hand, whilst the other hand, under the head of the fish, assists to place it the next moment high and dry upon the bank. Dr Hamilton of Windermere has invented a spiked glove to be worn on the hand tailing the fish, but I see no need for it; and between the difficulty of putting it on at the right moment and the clumsiness that must accompany its use, I would rather be without it.
The number of salmon and grilse taken from the Ewe is insignificant as compared with the quantities captured in the bag-nets. The largest number I have ever known killed in one day was eight clean fish; this was in 1874. I never got more than five clean fish myself on the same day. Sir Kenneth Mackenzie once killed ten fish in a day on the Ewe,—his best bag. Mr O. H. Mackenzie of Inverewe about 1853 killed seven salmon in one day, and five the next day. He was only a boy at the time, and was not fishing long on either day. For a notice of the sport the late Sir Hector Mackenzie and others had in the Ewe many years ago see [Appendix E].
Sir Hector had a singular mode of fishing. His son, Dr Mackenzie, writes:—"Few were better able to handle a rod than our father, and then there were no wading mackintoshes dreamed of to keep all dry. And as many pools in our river needed to be waded into or a boat to fish them rightly, wicked knowing old white Trig was ridden by my father into the pool, which thus was commanded by his rod all over it; and very soon Trig became quite interested in the sport, and the moment he saw a rush from a salmon or sea-trout, he backed slowly and steadily to the bank and let my father dismount and land the fish." This was on the river Conan.
The charms of the Ewe are manifold,—the wooded knolls on its upper reaches; the lovely peeps of the mountains of Loch Maree, and of the nearer range of Craig Tollie; the stories of the past that linger about its neighbourhood; the beauties of the river itself, replete with bird life and with wild flowers; and above all the exciting sport, are attractions which cannot fail to delight the angler, especially if he be successful. And there are pools in the Ewe that yield an occasional fish, even when the river is at its lowest. After August the fish are mostly dark in colour, though I have known a bright grilse bagged as late in the season as 11th September.
The other salmon rivers in Gairloch depend more on a good supply of water than the Ewe. They fish best in July if there be water. Each of them has had cruives at some time. They are all in private hands. For the benefit of any angler who, being a friend of the tenant of any of these rivers, obtains permission to fish, I may mention that the river running from Loch Clair to the head of Loch Maree, called the Garbh, is best fished from Kenlochewe, and is let with the Kenlochewe shootings; the Badachro river is let with the Shieldaig shootings; and the Kerry river is let with the Flowerdale shootings. The Little Gruinard river is not exclusively in one hand; the principal right to it is let with shootings.